The Holy Rosary: the pain that saves
The Holy Rosary: the pain that saves
The five painful mysteries of the Holy Rosary are the highest and most precious school of love that teaches not to avoid or flee pain, but to enhance it, making it a means of salvation for eternal life, transfiguring it into "greatest love", as Jesus teaches that "no one has a greater love than one who sacrifices his life for others" (Jn 16,16:XNUMX).
The five painful mysteries of the Holy Rosary, in fact, bring us to the school of Jesus, the Redeemer, who immolates himself for our salvation by offering himself to the bloody crucifixion on Calvary; they bring us to the school of Mary Most Holy, the Coredemptrix, who immolates herself by letting her soul pass by the sword already foretold by the holy old Simeon during the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple (cf. Lk 2,34: 35-XNUMX).
The painful mysteries of the Holy Rosary offer our contemplation the "greatest love" of Jesus and Mary for us, to save us and to sanctify us, and they also want to push us to walk on this path of "greater love" to conform to the Redeemer following the example of the divine Coredemptrix Mother. The Way of the Cross is always the way of salvation. To depart from this path means to frustrate salvation. This is why prayer and sacrifice, the apostolate and sacrifice are the true love that saves.
When we think of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina who recited bundles of Rosaries every day, widening the holy crown with his wounded and bleeding hands, we see clearly what the prayer-sacrifice means that saves and sanctifies. It was explicit teaching of Padre Pio, moreover, that souls are saved not by gift, but by buying them one by one, always with the same coin of Jesus: the blood coin! And the fruits of all those blood rosaries of Padre Pio, of all that immense prayer-sacrifice of every day and night, were, in fact, the great crowds of souls attracted to God, the crowds of converts, the crowds of spiritual children who formed his "world clientele", as Pope Paul VI said, who formed his family of spiritual children scattered all over the world, and who still continue to climb the Gargano mountain today to get closer to God thanks to Padre Pio. Power of the Rosary-sacrifice!
The Rosary is the secret!
We can also think of the other great apostle, contemporary of Padre Pio, St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe, the "Fool of the Immaculate Conception", martyr in the field of Auschwitz's death. Severely ill with tuberculosis from his youth, St. Maximilian lived working equally without stopping, between one hemoptysis and the other, passionately committed to the salvation of souls "through the Immaculate Conception", that is, bringing souls on the white staircase go up to Heaven more easily.
One day, in Japan, a doctor-radiologist from the University of Tokyo, who had become Catholic, meeting with Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe, wanted to make a medical examination because, shaking his hand, he realized that the saint had a high fever; the doctor was frightened to find that St. Maximilian lived with one lung, not even very efficient, and told the Saint that he should immediately stop and stop all activities, under penalty of a quick death. The Saint, however, told the doctor that for ten years the doctors had made him that terrible diagnosis, but that he had equally been able to work tirelessly, even with constant fever and periodic hemoptysis. Stunned, the doctor could not explain at all how it was possible to work for ten years, founding two "Cities of the Immaculate Conception" in Poland and Japan, with tuberculosis on him and with torn lungs: what was the secret of so much strength and fruitfulness ? St. Maximilian then took the crown of the Rosary and showing it to the doctor said, smiling: "Doctor, this is my secret!".
Why not make the Rosary our secret too? Is it possible that the recitation of a chaplet must cost us so much every day? And if the prayer of the Rosary costs us, why not understand that reciting it is even more worthwhile, precisely because it costs us sacrifice? Praying only when you feel like it and when it costs us nothing, means almost never praying or praying with almost no merit. Saint Margaret Maria Alacoque, the apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, loved the Rosary intensely and committed herself to reciting it every day, always on her knees. She herself says that once, sitting to recite the Rosary, Our Lady appeared to her and said to her: "My daughter, do you use me with such negligence?". The Saint never forgot these words, and she understood well the preciousness of the prayer-sacrifice!
The examples of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, St. Maximilian Kolbe and St. Margaret Alacoque support us in the generous commitment of the daily recitation of the Rosary, whatever the cost.